Herman Schwartz is a professor at the American University law school in Washington, DC and is a contributing editor of The Nation magazine. In late March he visited Turkey on behalf of Helsinki Watch to investigate prison conditions...

A largely ignored byproduct of the Iranian revolution and the Gulf war has been the large influx of refugees into Turkey. The economic benefits of Turkish neutrality during the Gulf war led Ankara to downplay the problem, but the recent arrival...

Perhaps the saddest commentary on the situation in Iran is Amnesty International’s recent statement that “some former prisoners of conscience held during the 1970s when the late Shah was in power, for whose unconditional release [...

The Rabita affair underlines the extent to which the post-1980 regime in Turkey has turned to Islam as a bulwark against the left. “Rabita” -- the Saudi-based Rabit’at al-Alam al-Islami (World Islamic League) -- advocates the...

Tarikats are religious orders established to “search for divine truth.” They have been part of Turkish cultural and social life for centuries. The groups discussed here are Sunni. Turkey’s Shi‘a do have their own...

The Hearth of Intellectuals, a small organization comprising some 150 conservative journalists, academics and other intellectuals, has functioned as a sort of fountainhead for a new legitimizing ideology for the Turkish Republic. Gencay Şaylan...

The Kurdish issue has become a daily staple of the Turkish press. At first focused on PKK atrocities, coverage now allows many people to get a clearer view of the conditions facing the country’s Kurdish citizens. Articles and interviews...